KANSAS CITY – When Mariano Rivera walks into the Metrodome tonight, he won’t be able to block out the empty feeling he had the last time he was in it.

It was Oct. 9 of last year, in the middle of the Yankees’ celebration following their ALDS victory over the Twins, when Rivera and his wife, Clara, received word that two of Clara’s relatives were electrocuted on Rivera’s property in Panama.

Rivera left the club the next day and returned in time to save Game 1 of the ALCS against the Red Sox on Tuesday while pitching with a heavy heart. He saved two games and was charged with two blown saves in the series the Yankees led, 3-0, but flushed in seven.

“I was thinking about that two days ago,” Rivera said before last night’s 5-2 loss to the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. “I was thinking about going back there. It will be the first time since it happened and it will be tough.”

Rivera hasn’t been back to his Panama home since the funerals but his thinking about returning this coming Christmas.

“I was devastated, it was tough,” Rivera recalled when asked about getting the horrible news in the middle of a clubhouse celebration. “It was very hard.”

The lasting image from that night is Clara being ushered out of the Metrodome crying and Rivera following with a blank look on his face.

Will it be difficult to go back to the Metrodome and do his job against the Twins?

“I will try to not make it hard,” Rivera said. “Hopefully I won’t have those kind of memories.”

In reality, it will be impossible to ignore. He will dress in the same clubhouse he got the terrible news that altered his family’s lives.